ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE English Studies => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE English & EAL => Topic started by: aiming_95 on December 01, 2011, 07:34:31 pm
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So today I received my book list and saw that my novel was 'Year of Wonders' I read a little bit about the book online.
For the people who have already read it, what did you think of it ?
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It's reasonably good, although all of my students seemed to hate it...
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It's my favourite book from what I studied this year, but then again, the other two weren't great. Not the kind of book I'd read for leisure, but nevertheless decent.
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Yeah I wrote on it for the end of year exam. It's quite straightforward, I found. I could get a topic on YOW and I could figure out my paragraphs quite easily because there wasnt that much of a collusion between the themes compared to other novels, I think.
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i'm studying this book next year too! :) so far it's alright.... i guess. Have you read it yet? what else are you doing for english?
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I got my book list today, so I haven't had the chance to sit down and begin reading.
I recommend you buy a summary of the book at SSRC, the little book consists of 66 pages and is made by NEAP. I had a quick look, and looks like gold.
Here is their website:
http://www.ssrc.com.au/
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Couldn't find anything for this novel in the 'notes' section :O
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I got my book list today, so I haven't had the chance to sit down and begin reading.
I recommend you buy a summary of the book at SSRC, the little book consists of 66 pages and is made by NEAP. I had a quick look, and looks like gold.
Here is their website:
http://www.ssrc.com.au/
Be very careful with these books though. Remember, you're trying to make your pieces shine at the end of the year, and yet you're buying a product that every other student has access to the exact same ideas/quotes etc. At least half of my class had this book, and my teacher knew it back to front....no suprise the highest mark was a B+
HOWEVER, I really liked the book, it is very straightforward but very interesting if you take on board the ideas explored and how things have changed/stayed the same over time..
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Hmm never thought of it that way, thanks.
Respect.
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Hmm never thought of it that way, thanks.
Respect.
Haha didn't mean to scare you or anthing, by all means get some quick summaries and stuff, but just keep it at the back of your mind :)
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Year of Wonders starts off reaaaaaally boring, but once you've gotten further into the novel, you'll start to enjoy the story and maybe even the language and the way it's written ... hahaha. The essay topics offered are pretty straight-foward and you'll always find something to write about :)
(I wrote about it in my exam, so maybe I'm a little biased .. )
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I have notes that I made of the themes and quotes. I can put them up.
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Sounds great :D
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great book.
read it 6 times..
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You've read the book so many times, you may have the plague.
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I'm 200 pages in as I got the book a few days ago, and it's decent... basically people die each day from the plague and it kind of gets a bit repetitive, new names come in the story and a few pages later they're dead... , nevertheless it's not the worst book to read but definitely not my favourite at the moment. Hopefully the ending is good though :D
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Hopefully the ending is good though :D
Prepare to say WTF
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I'm also 200 pages in, yeh it is getting a bit repetitive.
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Hopefully the ending is good though :D
Prepare to say WTF
LOL!! I was just going to say, the ending is a HUGE surprise (at least to me anyway) didn't expect it honestly. The tiring thing was the constant deaths, but its the plague, so thats expected. Anyway, i reckon the book kinda grows on you and you begin to appreciate the way it was written and everything else related to it. I really liked the book overall. I'd personally read it again if it wasn't my english novel.
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I knuckled down and read the last 110 pages last night, and all I can say is... :o
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SPOILER:
So in summary... Elinor gets killed by Aphra (the crazy bitch) which somehow gets Michael Mompellion laid, but then Anna freaks out, takes his horse and gets married to an Arab.
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Oh yeh and here are a few links I found which contain study guides on the novel:
http://www.bookbrowse.com/reading_guides/detail/index.cfm?book_number=879
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/author/authorExtra.aspx?authorID=50017902&isbn13=9781841154589&displayType=readingGuide
http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/year_of_wonders.html
http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/1191-year-of-wonders-brooks
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-year-of-wonders/
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What a lot of people fail to realise is that this book is so deep. It's deep to the point where memorizing the places, people, and events in the text is actually quite a feat. There is simply so much to 'tear' at. It's actually a feat to memorise all the characters names and motives. You need to contextualise the text in it's global setting; Anna transforms from a servant widow into an educated, independent woman and she overcomes all the encounters she faces.
It's subtle things that you need to pick up on, like the fact that Anna fears midwifery because her mother died giving birth. She fears going into mines, because he husband Sam died in a freak mining accident. She fears herblore, because she knows that she'll be thought of as a witch (only a singular sentence gives this fear away in the text). And yet she does ALL of these things for the BETTERMENT of the village. Be aware of these small things - everything that's in the book is there for a reason.
Not to mention the text is structurally rich. I wholeheartedly believe that one of the reasons I managed to scrape a 48 in English this year was because one of the prompts pandered heavily to an understanding of the texts structure. Learn stuff like I said in the original post in this thread -> Year of Wonders Prompts - What did you pick?
I loved Year of Wonders. It blew 'On the Waterfront' and ALL of our C&P texts out of the water.
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kill my life, the year hasn't even started yet and I'VE LOST MY COPY OF YEAR OF WONDERS!
Now I'm buying a second copy of epl hahaha.
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Well done Tisara :P
I quite liked Year of Wonders minus the epilogue. We discussed it extensively in class and I have come no closer to appreciating it. Other than that the book was quite good in itself. While I didn't cry over it (which apparently many of its reviewers did, if you check amazon, guardian and the like), I did find myself admiring Brooks' prose and story-line as the book progressed. Kind of.
I hope you all come to find some sort of enjoyment in reading it (English really is just terrible if you can't like anything about it).
Good luck to the class of 2012!
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kill my life, the year hasn't even started yet and I'VE LOST MY COPY OF YEAR OF WONDERS!
Now I'm buying a second copy of epl hahaha.
My copy of Year of Wonders will get you a score above 40 for English. :p Comparatively to my other text, Richard III, Year of Wonders was a great novel to read. It has a lot of prevailing themes and ideas within it and it's a simple read too. The ending sucked for me though. If you end up writing on this text in the exam, you'll find that most essay prompts are similar in what they ask.
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LOL just read through this thread and saw kazdawgs post 'Prepare to say WTF' and then the other comments after it
Hilarious, made me chuckle
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I am reading it now.
Somehow the style of writing frustrates me, sometimes it's just too verbose...
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SPOILER:
So in summary... Elinor gets killed by Aphra (the crazy bitch) which somehow gets Michael Mompellion laid, but then Anna freaks out, takes his horse and gets married to an Arab.
Damn sounds kinky, I wish we studied this book, I might have actually been motivated to do a practice essay or two ::)
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SPOILER:
So in summary... Elinor gets killed by Aphra (the crazy bitch) which somehow gets Michael Mompellion laid, but then Anna freaks out, takes his horse and gets married to an Arab.
Damn sounds kinky, I wish we studied this book, I might have actually been motivated to do a practice essay or two ::)
Nah not really. Its just a lot of 'and so we had each other on the floor of the barn, like horses. Our grief fueling our passion, our need to escape from our loss' etc.
Boring. Not graphic at all.
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i finished it yesterday and i loved it! well... excusing the ending... it was a little predictable when I thought back. Except I guess I knew all along what was going to happen coz epl told me hahaha.
I liked anna's character too :D hmm the rector...
and like (i don't think is a spoiler so i'm just gonna ask but STOP READING IF YOU'RE PEDANTIC LIKE THAT) that merry wickford kid... why did she need a lead plate? i kinda rushed my reading of the book XD we're studying it second anyways.
SPOILER:
So in summary... Elinor gets killed by Aphra (the crazy bitch) which somehow gets Michael Mompellion laid, but then Anna freaks out, takes his horse and gets married to an Arab.
Damn sounds kinky, I wish we studied this book, I might have actually been motivated to do a practice essay or two ::)
Nah not really. Its just a lot of 'and so we had each other on the floor of the barn, like horses. Our grief fueling our passion, our need to escape from our loss' etc.
Boring. Not graphic at all.
LOLOOLLL yeahhh that whole harem thing was like... weird twist. :S and LOL i thought it was quite graphic (compared to every other lame thing i've studied at school). Every page is on either people dying, people on the verge of death with gruesome descriptions of their conditions, people getting pregnant, people having babies or people regretfully confiding stories of their naughty past. hahaaa. oh but the most boring parts of the book were probably the whole anna nearly facing death in the mine bit (like duh she wasn't gonna die, who'd tell the story) and anna and elinor pouring over their herbal crap.
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Hated it!
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LOL ahaha I meant the 'sex scenes' werent graphic. Otherwise the graphic nature of Brooks description of nature and the landscape plays a big part in the novel. You'd probably end up writing about that a lot.
Yeah LOL i cant even remember reading the mine bit. All I know is that she survived and came out stronger because she faced her fears LOL
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Lollll I thought the sex scenes were plenty graphic.... O.O obvsly I dnt read much romance.. Or I don't know what u usually read ;D
Ohhhh so that's what u were supposed to get from the mine scene! Thanks hehe :)
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Lollll I thought the sex scenes were plenty graphic.... O.O obvsly I dnt read much romance.. Or I don't know what u usually read ;D
LOL ahaha Its funny because I do read romance! Now THEY get pretty explicit!
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did anyone else feel that the ending was quite sudden or not as great as you expected?
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did anyone else feel that the ending was quite sudden or not as great as you expected?
Yes! I felt like the ending was somewhat anticlimatic.. I don't know how I expected it to end. But I did expect more...
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I felt how Anna left Mompellion was lame. Screw taking his horse, bash him up a little before you leave. Kick his balls a bit. And shove his letter up his ass.
Yea, 17th century feminism at its best.
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In general it felt like a very simple book, not once did I say to myself "wait what just happened"
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did anyone else feel that the ending was quite sudden or not as great as you expected?
Yeeeees. I felt it was a bit of a cop out of an ending. Apart from that, a very intricate and interesting text- lots to delve into in essays.
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*bump*
So how has everyone's first two weeks of English been in relation to the Year Of Wonders ? let's get some discussion happening :P
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My English teacher sucks massive balls.. so far all we've done is get into groups and come up with 3-4 themes and the questions they raise. How many times have you read the book so far aiming? I need to read it again.. -.- Can't seem to find the time to do it though
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I read it once over the holidays and have gone through the NEAP study guide a few times.
Yeh, I need to read it again :S and this time probably write some notes on it.
How many times do you think we need to read it during the year ?
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A great book to write on. Heaps of detail in there, symbolism included! You will find not only the basics to be able to grapple with at the start, but you will be able to develop some seriously sophisticated topic sentences and paragraphs from the novel. May I suggest going to Texts and the City (sp?) online and checking out the video they (should still) have there. It's fantastic and gives even more of a background on things. Just makes you start thinking - which is basically all that this subject requires you to do; think logically, in a sophisticated fashion, and put it into prose.
Edit: If you have read the ending and thought: WTF WHAT IS THIS CRAZY KID ON ABOUT? Dw I'm not gonna do a spoiler here... but I'm just saying that if you do further research/watch the video online (re: above) then you will understand why it was so... unpredictable!
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A great book to write on. Heaps of detail in there, symbolism included! You will find not only the basics to be able to grapple with at the start, but you will be able to develop some seriously sophisticated topic sentences and paragraphs from the novel. May I suggest going to Texts and the City (sp?) online and checking out the video they (should still) have there. It's fantastic and gives even more of a background on things. Just makes you start thinking - which is basically all that this subject requires you to do; think logically, in a sophisticated fashion, and put it into prose.
Edit: If you have read the ending and thought: WTF WHAT IS THIS CRAZY KID ON ABOUT? Dw I'm not gonna do a spoiler here... but I'm just saying that if you do further research/watch the video online (re: above) then you will understand why it was so... unpredictable!
Are you referring to this video ?
http://wheelercentre.com/videos/video/texts-in-the-city-year-of-wonders/
Oh yeh, and thanks. +1
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I read it once over the holidays and have gone through the NEAP study guide a few times.
Yeh, I need to read it again :S and this time probably write some notes on it.
How many times do you think we need to read it during the year ?
I'm aiming to read it 5-6 times. I need to get some study guides on it.. is the NEAP study guide good?
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I personally really really enjoyed the NEAP study guide.
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Cool. I might buy it, where did you get yours from?
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A great book to write on. Heaps of detail in there, symbolism included! You will find not only the basics to be able to grapple with at the start, but you will be able to develop some seriously sophisticated topic sentences and paragraphs from the novel. May I suggest going to Texts and the City (sp?) online and checking out the video they (should still) have there. It's fantastic and gives even more of a background on things. Just makes you start thinking - which is basically all that this subject requires you to do; think logically, in a sophisticated fashion, and put it into prose.
Edit: If you have read the ending and thought: WTF WHAT IS THIS CRAZY KID ON ABOUT? Dw I'm not gonna do a spoiler here... but I'm just saying that if you do further research/watch the video online (re: above) then you will understand why it was so... unpredictable!
Are you referring to this video ?
http://wheelercentre.com/videos/video/texts-in-the-city-year-of-wonders/
Oh yeh, and thanks. +1
Yep, the guest is awesome, I wish I could've have her in the back of my head telling me what to do in the exam and SACs! :P lol nah I was pretty happy with choosing this book to write on for the end of the year, I spose it did pay off :)
For the current English students probs the most valuable resources I found --apart from making my teacher's hand prackers fall off from essay corrections-- were these videos, the study guides and movie adaptations of the selected texts, etc so big thumbs up for you guys for already gettin stuck into them this early! Just don't let them cloud your own invaluable interpretations of the text, have your own first reactions filed away for safekeeping & mindblowin essays! woooo
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Cool. I might buy it, where did you get yours from?
http://www.ssrc.com.au/
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It would be so cool if a movie was made for this book. Came across something like a trailer..lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Psfpsr0m4